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| Founded | 2007; 18 years ago (2007) |
|---|---|
| Type | 501(c)(3) |
| 14-2007220 | |
| Focus | Investigative journalism |
| Location |
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Area served | United States |
Key people |
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| Employees | > 100[1] |
| Website | www |
ProPublica (/proʊˈpʌblɪkə/),[2] legallyPro Publica, Inc., is a nonprofitinvestigative journalism organization based in New York City. ProPublica's investigations are conducted by its staff of full-time investigative reporters, and the resulting stories are distributed to news partners for publication or broadcast. In some cases, reporters from both ProPublica and its partners work together on a story. ProPublica has partnered with more than 90 different news organizations and has won severalPulitzer Prizes.[3][4]
In 2010, it became the first online news source to win a Pulitzer Prize; the story chronicled the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital's exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters ofHurricane Katrina,[5][6][7] and was published both in theNew York Times Magazine[8] and ProPublica's website.[9]
ProPublica was the brainchild ofHerbert andMarion Sandler, the former chief executives of theGolden West Financial Corporation, who have committed $10 million a year to the project.[10] The Sandlers hiredPaul Steiger, former managing editor of theWall Street Journal, to create and run the organization as editor in chief.
At the time ProPublica was set up, Steiger responded to concerns about the role of the left-leaning political views of the Sandlers, saying on theNewshour with Jim Lehrer:
Coming into this, when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship ... My history has been doing "down the middle" reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion I said, "Are you comfortable with that?" They said, "Absolutely." I said, "Well, suppose we did an exposé of some of the left leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you've supported in the past." They said, "No problem." And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and of which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we're going to report on.[11]
ProPublica had an initial news staff of 28 reporters and editors,[12] includingPulitzer Prize winnersCharles Ornstein,Tracy Weber,Jeff Gerth, andMarcus Stern. Steiger was reported to have received 850 applications[13] upon ProPublica's announcement. The organization appointed a 12-member advisory board of professional journalists.
The newsgroup shares its work under theCreative Commons no-derivative, non-commercial license.[14]
On August 5, 2015,Yelp announced a partnership with ProPublica to bring improved healthcare data into Yelp's statistics on healthcare providers.[15]
While theSandler Foundation provided ProPublica with significant financial support, it also has received funding from theKnight Foundation,MacArthur Foundation,Pew Charitable Trusts,Ford Foundation,the Carnegie Corporation, and theAtlantic Philanthropies.[16] ProPublica and the Knight Foundation have various connections. For example, Paul Steiger, executive chairman of ProPublica, is a trustee of the Knight Foundation.[17] In like manner, Alberto Ibarguen, the president and CEO of the Knight Foundation is on the board of ProPublica.[18] ProPublica, along with other major news outlets, received grant funding fromSam Bankman-Fried, the founder of cryptocurrency exchangeFTX.[19]
ProPublica has attracted attention for the salaries it pays its employees.[20][21] In 2008, Paul Steiger, the editor of ProPublica, received a salary of $570,000.[22] Steiger was formerly the managing editor atThe Wall Street Journal, where his total compensation (includingoptions[22]) was double that at ProPublica.[23] Steiger's stated strategy is to use aWall Street Journal pay model to attract journalistic talent.[24] In 2010, eight ProPublica employees made more than $160,000, including managing editor Stephen Engelberg ($343,463) and the highest-paid reporter,Dafna Linzer, formerly of theWashington Post ($205,445).[25]
In 2010, ProPublica jointly won thePulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting (it was also awarded to thePhiladelphia Daily News for an unrelated story) for "The Deadly Choices at Memorial", "a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital's exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina."[26] It was written by ProPublica'sSheri Fink and published inThe New York Times Magazine[8] as well as on ProPublica.org.[9] This was the first Pulitzer awarded to an online news source.[6][7] The article also won the 2010National Magazine Award for Reporting.[27]
In 2011, ProPublica won its second Pulitzer Prize.[28] Reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won thePulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their series,The Wall Street Money Machine. This was the first time a Pulitzer was awarded to a group of stories not published in print.
In 2016, ProPublica won its third Pulitzer Prize, this time forExplanatory Reporting, in collaboration withThe Marshall Project for "a startling examination and exposé oflaw enforcement's enduring failures to investigate reports of rape properly and to comprehend the traumatic effects on its victims."[29]
In 2017, ProPublica and theNew YorkDaily News were awarded thePulitzer Prize for Public Service for a series of reports on the use of eviction rules by theNew York City Police Department.[30][31][32]
In 2019, thePeabody Awards honored ProPublica with the first-ever Peabody Catalyst Award for releasing audio in 2018 that brought immediate change to a controversial government practice of family separation at the southern border.[33]
Also in 2019, ProPublica reporter Hannah Dreier was awarded thePulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her series that followed immigrants on Long Island whose lives were shattered by a botched crackdown onMS-13.[34]
In May 2020, ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for illuminating public safety gaps inAlaska.[35]
In that same year, ProPublica also won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of theUnited States Navy and the collisions of theUSSFitzgerald andUSSJohn S. McCain (DDG-56) with civilian vessels in separate incidents in the western Pacific. The stories were written byT. Christian Miller,Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi.[36]
In 2021 and 2022, ProPublica journalists Lisa Song and Mark Olalde wonSEAL Awards for consistent excellence in environmental reporting.[37][38]
In May 2024, ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for reporting on the billionaires giving gifts to the USSupreme Court's justices and covering their travel expenses. The stories were written by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott,Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg.[39]
In July 2024, Mary Hudetz was presented with the Richard LaCourse Award for Investigative Journalism by theIndigenous Journalists Association for her work on ProPublica’s "The Repatriation Project."[40] Her reporting, which focused on the complexities and obstacles in repatriatingNative American remains and sacred objects from museums and universities "had rippling effects at the institutional level down to Indigenous communities and peoples".[41]
T. Christian Miller of ProPublica andKen Armstrong ofThe Marshall Project collaborated on this piece about the process that discovered a serial rapist in Colorado and Washington state.[42] The piece won a 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.[43] This piece was adapted into the 2019Netflix seriesUnbelievable.[44]
In 2016, ProPublica published an investigation of theCOMPAS algorithm used byU.S. courts to assess the likelihood of adefendant becoming arecidivist.[45] Led byJulia Angwin, the investigation found that "blacks are almost twice as likely as whites to be labeled a higher risk but not actually re-offend," whereas COMPAS "makes the opposite mistake among whites: They are much more likely than blacks to be labeled lower-risk but go on to commit other crimes."[45][46][47] They also found that only 20 percent of people predicted to commit violent crimes actually went on to do so.[45]
COMPAS developer Northpointe criticized ProPublica’s methodology,[45] while a team at theCommunity Resources for Justice, a criminal justicethink tank, published a rebuttal of the investigation's findings.[48]
ProPublica conducted a large-scale, circumscribed investigation onPsychiatric Solutions, a company based in Tennessee that buys failing hospitals, cuts staff, and accumulates profit.[49] The report covered patient deaths at numerous Psychiatric Solutions facilities, the failing physical plant at many of their facilities, and covered theState of Florida's first closure ofManatee Palms Youth Services, which has since been shut down[50] by Florida officials once again.[51] Their report was published in conjunction with theLos Angeles Times.
In 2017, ProPublica launched theDocumenting Hate project for systematic tracking ofhate crimes andbias incidents.[52] The project is part of their Civil Rights beat, and allows victims or witnesses of hate crime incidents to submit stories. The project also allows journalists and newsrooms to partner with ProPublica to write stories based on the dataset they are collecting. For example, the MinneapolisStar Tribune partnered with ProPublica to write about reporting of hate crimes in Minnesota.[53]
In 2015, ProPublica launched Surgeon Scorecard, an interactive database that allows users to view complication rates for eight common elective procedures. The tool allows users to find surgeons and hospitals, and see their complication rates.[54] The database was controversial, drawing criticism from doctors and prompting a critique fromRAND.[55][56] However, statisticians, includingAndrew Gelman, stood behind their decision to attempt to shine light on an opaque aspect of the medical field,[57] and ProPublica offered specific rebuttals to RAND's claims.[58]
ProPublica has created an interactive map that allows people to search for addresses in New York City to see the effects of eviction cases.[59] The app was nominated for aLivingston Award.[60]
In June 2021, after receiving leaked, hacked, or stolen[61][62]IRS documents, ProPublica published a report which claimed that tax rates for the wealthiest Americans were significantly lower than the average middle class tax rate, if unrealizedcapital gains are considered as equivalent toearned income.[63] ProPublica would later reveal that technology investor and political donorPeter Thiel legally earned more than $5 billion in a tax-freeRoth IRA account through his investments in private companies.[64] Attorney GeneralMerrick Garland told lawmakers that investigating the source of the release would be a top priority for the Justice Department.[65]
Research by ProPublica andNashville Public Radio found juvenile incarcerations inRutherford County, Tennessee, to be far higher than the national average. The investigation, published in October 2021 as "Black Children Were Jailed for a Crime That Doesn’t Exist. Almost Nothing Happened to the Adults in Charge", revealed that county authorities had charged some of the children under non-existent laws, as directed by JudgeDonna Scott Davenport, and that, among Tennessee children referred to juvenile court, the statewide rate of incarceration was five percent, while in Rutherford County it was 48 percent.[66] The article was a finalist in the 2022National Magazine Awards.[67] Reportage continued bypodcast, withThe Kids of Rutherford County.[68]
In 2021, ProPublica published the results of a two-year analytical project involving examining billions of rows of EPA data to create a map to chart industrial pollution at the neighborhood level – the first of its kind. In five years' worth of EPA data, ProPublica identified over 1,000 toxic hotspots nationwide, estimating that 250,000 people living near these areas may have been exposed to levels of cancer risk that the EPA deems unacceptable.[69][70] ProPublica intended to represent data in a way where the public can understand the risk of breathing the air where they live. Through the map, the town ofVerona, Missouri was identified to have an industrial cancer risk 27 times larger than the acceptable value. Subsequently, the EPA agreed to install three air monitors to track ethylene oxide concentration in Verona.[71][better source needed] Additional "hot spots" identified on the map include the city ofLongview in eastern Texas; the most high-risk area of Longview has a risk level 72 times greater than the EPA's acceptable risk. This most high-risk area is the home of Texas Eastman Chemical Plant. According to ProPublica, its analysis of the plant's emissions detectedethylene oxide and1-3 butadiene. The Texas Eastman Chemical Plant says it has conducted its own tests which "have revealed no areas of concern."[72]
In 2017, ProPublica published an investigative report detailing the involvement ofGina Haspel inenhanced interrogation techniques at a black site in Thailand. The report focused particularly on the harsh methods used onAbu Zubaydah, including waterboarding, confinement in small boxes, and wall slamming. In 2018, ProPublica retracted part of its 2017 report and said that Haspel had not taken over control of the black site until after Abu Zubaydah interrogation had ended. This retraction came after Haspel was nominated to lead theCIA, sparking renewed scrutiny of her record.[73]AP News,The New York Times,NBC andThe Atlantic made similar corrections to stories they had published about Haspel's time as head of the Thai black site.[74]
In 2023, ProPublica launched an investigative series uncovering the complexities and delays in repatriating Native American remains and cultural items under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The series exposed institutional resistance from museums and universities, driving significant policy discussions[75] and increased efforts toward compliance. This investigative work earned Mary Hudetz the Richard LaCourse Award for Investigative Journalism from the Indigenous Journalists Association in July 2024.[41][40]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Pulitzer Prize for Public Service (2001–2025) | ||
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